5 Things to Look for in a Senior Dating Coach or Agency

Making the decision to go back into the dating world is not easy. Do you ask yourself, “Can I do it on my own?” If you think you need help and support, join us in this conversation with professional dating coach, Lisa Copeland. She gives her invaluable advice for finding the best coach. Enjoy the show!

Margaret Manning:

My guest today is Lisa Copeland who is a professional dating coach. She has a mission in life to help women over 50 to find love in their life and to find a quality man. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Copeland:

Hi, Margaret. Tanks for having me.

Margaret:

I love having you on here because you are always so amazingly positive and upbeat and also, you are a wealth of knowledge about online senior dating.

Lisa:

Thank you.

Margaret:

You’re welcome. Today I want us to talk about dating coaches. There a lot of agencies and consultants out there that help women who haven’t been in the scene for a while. Since you are a dating coach, I wanted to ask you, what do you do? What should women be looking for in a person like you to help them get started?

Lisa:

First of all, I help women find a love of themselves. That is the real foundation that will help you get anywhere because without loving yourself you can’t attract anybody. You can get the tools and skills online, but the biggest thing about dating coaches is that we help you go deeper.

We get into limiting believes, I keep you motivated, and I help you get rid of the stories that are holding you back. I keep you focused and accountable to your goals. I find that women go on telesummits and gather a ton of information, which then goes up in the closet with the rest of the notebooks, and never gets used.

When you work with a dating coach, you want to resonate with them, and you want that coach to teach you how to handle every aspect of dating. There’s a big difference in having me help you write a text to let a guy down, versus you trying to figure it out from my blog.

I think the support is really important. When I was dating, I had nowhere to turn to for support, and that’s one of the reasons I became a coach. Once I figured it out, I knew what to do. So, when I work with clients, they really have 24/7 email access to me while we are working together.

I never want a woman to suffer and worry about why something happened. I want her to get an answer quickly, so that she can get a peace of mind. It’s really about the support.

Margaret:

So, when a woman approaches a dating coach like you, what are the first kinds of questions that you ask her in order to get through that first layer of defense and her lack of confidence?

Lisa:

Since I’ve been doing this for a while, and I’m also very empathic and key into people, I always want to find out what their dream is. That dream is why they are coming to me in the first place. I need to hear their dream and know what’s involved with it.

I need to know what their dream feels like to them, what a love relationship feels like to them. It’s really important because that’s the place they need to keep in their heart and in their mind when they’re out there frustrated and want to quit. There are a lot of women who do it all on their own. Then, when things get difficult, they want to quit because they don’t know the next step.

That’s the first thing I do with them. The second thing is finding out their challenges. I need to know where they are in their journey and what problems they’re facing. That’s important because it will help create a strategy that will fit their needs.

They may need a VIP date to jump start them, or they might need six to twelve months of coaching, which mostly consists of support. They learn a lot during that time. Most of the women who end up working with me start with six months of coaching. I allow them to use my services up to 12 months though, along with the 24/7 email support.

I do it this way because sometimes they need to take breaks from dating. It also helps them stay motivated to be out there dating. We need to be continually motivated and inspired to go after our dreams and to continue to visualize what we want.

I love the American basketball player LeBron James, who is a sports icon. Once I caught him talking about how he got in touch with his dream and how he visualizes his dream every day. He also has coaches to help him achieve that dream. Now he is one of the world’s best ever basketball players.

It is the same way with dating. You need someone to help you keep your dream a top priority because otherwise you’ll drop the priority of it and give up.

Margaret:

This is a very valuable distinction to make when looking for a dating coach. A lot of dating coaches will go straight to getting you a date, or getting you to a point where you know how to play a little game to get someone interested. With you, and other coaches like you, it’s about getting to the heart of the person first.

Number one is being empathetic to who they are, to look at their challenges, and then to find out what their dream is. It’s important to know what they really want from life. Once you’ve done that, then you can talk about flirting or dating.

Lisa:

What you really have to do is uncover the blocks that are limiting your beliefs. Those blocks are the things that really hold us back — it has nothing to do with guys not contacting you online. This is why I love doing this deeper work with women. It’s on a really spiritual level.

There are times when I get off the phone or Skype, I go, “Yes, this is why I do this!” You can’t do anything with those tools or skills until you really work on yourself. You have to come to the dating table with confidence, mostly free — or at least aware — of some of those blocks and beliefs that are holding you back.

Margaret:

Also, you should feel that you’re worthy of the love that you are seeking. It’s easy to want to be accepted or chosen by someone on a dating site, but if you don’t feel worthy, you are always going to be on the defensive. Are there some typical things that block us frequently?

Lisa:

Yes. One of these blocks is dating the same type of man over and over again, even if we see it’s not working out. The reason we do that is because we actually date men to heal pieces of ourselves. Most women tend to date men who are emotionally unavailable, because they had a parent who was emotionally unavailable. They’re just using the relationship as a way to heal.

Falling in love is one thing, it has to do with hormones. It’s getting in the ‘like’ stage of a relationship where people disconnect the most. It is then, as the relationship is forming, that you find yourself working on the same issues you had to overcome as a child.

I had to do that in my own life too, so that I would stop being so attracted to ‘my’ type of man. If that ‘type’ was really ever good for me, I would still be with them.

Margaret:

In this line of work, you have to deal with psychology as well. Dating is where you expose yourself to another person. If you haven’t come to grips with the good-girl syndrome or the not-feeling-good-enough syndrome, you can’t make a jump over it, you have to go deep in it. And only then you can come through it with an open heart.

Lisa:

That’s right. It’s more than putting your profile online. It has more to do with getting to love yourself.  Working with women on such a deep level all the time so that they can make themselves feel worthy. It’s important that women feel their own value, that they feel empowered, not just to have a relationship.

Men feel it when they meet a confident woman. They love a woman who is confident and feels good about herself, but not in the narcissistic, egotistical way. She needs to be grounded so she comes across as feeling like she’s amazing, and he wants to be around her.

Margaret:

I think that women in our community would agree with that 100%. A lot of women come to a fork in the road in their 50’s and 60’s where all their friendships were contextual around their children or work.

Then they either go into their little cave to stay safe and quiet, or they think, “Wow, I’m 60 years old and I’ve got choices! I’m in good health and eager to live life. Why not find someone to have fun with?” This second attitude, like you mentioned, involves sometimes working with a coach who helps you to let that other stuff go.

I guess I wanted to chat with you about this because I think a lot of women could do with a Lisa. They need a dating coach who’s got good natured qualities. There are plenty of dating coaches who embody the qualities you’ve talked about, and those are really important. You should really look for a dating coach or an agency who will listen to your problems and will be there for you for the long run.

Lisa:

Yes, exactly. You need to resonate with them, and you need to feel like they can show you the path to stay motivated, inspired, focused and healing. A lot of it is about healing because our stuff comes up in relationships. Think about relationships you were in, in the past; your stuff came up, and it just needs to be healed for you to move on.

Margaret:

Lisa, do you continue working with people after they start dating?

Lisa:

Yes. Women do come back because they actually need help with the men they are with, so they can stay in that positive mode. They often say to me, “I’m glad that I have kept working with you because it really made my relationship stronger and better.”

It’s about staying in touch with your own feelings and things and challenges that come up, based on what you haven’t healed. I do want to say, you do not have to be perfect to date. Dating is a journey, and the real goal is to find someone, with whom you can grow spiritually, emotionally and mentally. If you do not grow together, it’s not going to feel good to either of you.

Margaret:

So, when you look for a dating coach make sure they will stick with you through the whole process. They should get to know you first, take an empathic stand to your life and try to build you up as a confident person, instead of pushing you right into dating.

I would encourage people to go up to Lisa’s site, findaqualityman.com, check it out, and see what it could do for you. Lisa, I know you do teleseminars. Can you tell us a bit about what you do to introduce your business to people?

Lisa:

Yeah, I do. If you go to the bottom of my site, you will find my Seven Days Dating Challenge. It’s a fun thing to do. Sign up for it, and you’ll get great tips. That one is about the dating tools and skills. It contains a lot of fun tips for dating, and how to get the guy.

Margaret:

Sounds great. I really enjoyed talking to you today. I got a lot of good ideas. I wish I had a pen here, so I could make notes as we go. You’re fantastic, Lisa. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Have you got experience with dating coaches? Was it positive or negative? How did they influence your dating experience? Please join the conversation!